So I cam up with an analysis tool that is meant to help the players grow and to roleplay personality better. It's meant to help you get in touch with a character and to actually develop a changing, breathing person. The ultimate goal of roleplaying!
In the chart I use everyone has the same number of points; 20. And depending on their starting alignment they have the 20 points divided up into Good, Evil, Law and Chaos.
Here are where my alignments start:
- Lawful Good______10 Law; 10 Good
- Neutral Good______5 Law, 5 Chaos; 10 Good
- Chaotic Good______10 Chaos; 10 Good
- Lawful Neutral_____10 Law; 5 Good, 5 Evil
- True Neutral_______5 Law, 5 Chaos; 5 Good, 5 Evil
- Chaotic Neutral____10 Chaos; 5 Good, 5 Evil
- Lawful Evil________10 Law; 10 Evil
- Neutral Evil________5 Law, 5 Chaos; 10 Evil
- Chaotic Evil_______10 Chaos; 10 Evil
Now, don't panic. This may seem like alot of complexity for an otherwise simple thing such as alignment. But once you have the mechanics down keeping track of this on one piece of paper is easy and rewarding.
Now that you have the starting points time to define the maintenance levels. This is also easy.
- Lawful Good______9+ Law; 9+ Good
- Neutral Good______Law/Chaos Difference <3; 7+ Good
- Chaotic Good______7+ Chaos; 7+ Good
- Lawful Neutral_____7+ Law; Good/Evil Difference <3
- True Neutral_______Law/Chaos Difference <2; Good/Evil Difference <2
- Chaotic Neutral____7+ Chaos; Good/Evil Difference <3
- Lawful Evil________7+ Law; 7+ Evil
- Neutral Evil________Law/Chaos Difference <3; 7+ Evil
- Chaotic Evil_______9+ Chaos; 9+ Evil
When a person gains any points he loses that many points in the opposite aspect. I.E. Bob the Lawful Neutral Cleric gains a good point for healing wounded enemy soldiers in a battle. And loses an evil point respectively.
Now, gaining and losing points should only happen when an extreme situation applies and most, if not all situations only result in one point difference. I.E.- Bob the Lawful Neutral Cleric helps to clean out a kobold lair with his party. While this is obviously a "good" act bob gains no good points. Why? Because clearing a kobold lair is something that is done. It is not character building or role-play affecting. Bob choosing to clear a kobold lair with his companions does not affect Bob’s character. Now Bob choosing to heal a dying soldier; as above, from an enemy army trying to wipe out his people is a character altering event and an extreme sign of kindness and good. But this is still only worth one good point no matter how many soldiers Bob chooses to heal. AND a similar event can no longer affect Bob unless another life-altering event causes him to shift towards evil.
Two points is the most you should ever gain/lose at any given time. I.E. A pit fiend approaches you and your level 7. He says he will spare your life and the lives of 10,000 others if you burn down that orphanage and kill everyone inside. If you do it, that's easily 2 evil points.
This system requires heavy DM/Player arbitration but I think it will help you as much as it has helped me. It shows me where my characters are going and how they interact with the world around them.
NOTE
Do not be tricked by "greater good" or "needs of the many..." quotes that claim doing an evil deed can be good. It can't! It may be a difficult choice but if Good was easy everyone would do it. Evil is much easier. Keep that in mind!
http://www.freewebs.com/sulaco/Alignment.jpg
A person begins with a mark smack-dab in the centre of whichever alignment they selected and the GM simply adjusts the mark depending on the character's actions in regards to law/chaos and good/evil axis. If they do something exceptionally good, they move one box upwards on the chart for example.
I've used 7x7 segments per alignment, but you can use more or less based on how gradual or abrupt you want the changes to be.
Unfortunately, ThePo's system produces a grid that doesn't have equal sized partitions and isn't completely defined. Specifically, the alignments LE & CG are 4x4 squares, whereas NE, NG, LN, & CN are all 3x4 squares. True neutral is only achieved when all scores are 5 because "True Neutral: Law/Chaos Difference <2; Good/Evil Difference <2" isn't satisfied by scores of 6 & 4. Even if this was changed to be "True Neutral: Law/Chaos Difference <3; Good/Evil Difference <3", true neutral would still only be a 3x3 square.
Currently, under ThePo's system, if your alignment 'score' is >3 & <7 for both axis, but not 5/5, 5/5, you have no alignment. Another undefined region is in the LG & CE corners. If your both your law & good scores are greater than 7, but aren't also both greater than 9, your alignment is undefined. The same is true of chaos & evil.
Frankly, ThePo's system is severely lacking (and I won't make any snide remarks relating to the letters Po & s). A simple correction would be to either change the variance in the system from 0 to 10 to 0 to 8. Such a change would produce a 9x9 grid with 2 & 5 as cut-off points for alignment changes. An even simpler system would be to just draw out the grid.
Originally posted by ThePo
Two points is the most you should ever gain/lose at any given time. I.E. A pit fiend approaches you and your level 7. He says he will spare your life and the lives of 10,000 others if you burn down that orphanage and kill everyone inside. If you do it, that's easily 2 evil points.
Sorry, but you can't tell me that's an evil action, unless there were 10,001 people in the orphanage. Don't look at it as taking the lives of 100, look at it as saving the lives of 9,901.
This takes up less space and works well.
Two options to prevent easy alignment flip-flops. Either may be used individually, or both may be used together.
Option #1: Put a buffer in between alignments (say of about 5 squares). The character must cross to the far side of the buffer to change alignment. If you have detrimental effects for changing alignments (not the case with core 3.x DnD) then some temporary detrimental effects should occur during this buffer period (to warn the character). For example, if you cause a level to be lost upon alignment change, a character in the buffer between alignments could suffer a negative level as a warning.
Option #2: When alignment is changed, jump position to the middle of the section for that alignment.
Originally posted by TieraStarr
Less complicated than a 2d graph is to use two 1d bar graphs for each character, one for the good/evil axis and the other for the law/chaos axis.
This takes up less space and works well.
Yes, but that is essentially what my chart is. I've simply placed the 2 axes at 90° to each other to create a matrix, thus making it more accessible to highly visual types like me.
While the 2 single-axis indicators work perfectly well, I like to immediately see the relationship between the two, which is what the chart allows.
Originally posted by Mountainking
One could argue that refusing to burn down that orphanage and thus condemning 10,000 innocent people to die is also an evil act.
One could argue that, but only if they really didn't think about it first. There is no way murdering even one child could fall under the "good" umbrella. Likewise, killing even one innocent person (let alone 10,000) to save even one other person (even an orphan), can not ever be considered "good".
In the example given, the character has but one option that would be considered "good." Fight the pit fiend in defense of "your life and the lives of 10,000 others" and "that orphanage and everyone inside." Yes, you will undoubtedly perish--and probably the 10,000 others--and maybe all within the orphanage. But you will have done the only thing you could have that would have been "good".
Your DM should not have placed your character in that position. That's why we have CRs. Unless he wanted to test the "goodness" of your character, and had a perfectly viable 'out' for you, given that you make the right choice for your alignment.
Aside from that, using a numerical or grid slide alignment seems to be a good idea for "Behind the screen" use. I also like the ideas of buffers. There usually aren't detrimental effects for changing alignments, but clerics can get slapped, and paladins most defiantly are harmed by alignment change. Barbarians, Bards, and Druids also could get hurt if their alignment slides wrong. A buffer where they receive warning that alignment change is imminent should they not change their ways is good for those classes
As for the warnings, how about this?
Bard shifting lawful: Perform checks suffer a -2 penalty, -1 effective caster level.
Barbarian shifting to lawful: Rages last 1d4 rounds less (roll each time the barbarian rages)
Druid moving to a prohibited alignment: Effective caster level -1, might receive a warning in a dream or vision.
Cleric moving to a prohibited alignment: Effective caster level -1, will likely receive a warning in a dream or vision.
Paladin moving to Neutral Good: Paladin abilities weaken, treated as 1 level lower for turning and spellcasting, warning in dream or vision.
Paladin shifting to LN: They'd have to had do some evil to even move in this direction. Refer to the PHB for paladins and evil acts.
I have to respectfully disagree about your statement about "the greater good," above. It's certainly not as cut and dry as you make it seem. One could argue that refusing to burn down that orphanage and thus condemning 10,000 innocent people to die is also an evil act.
and
Sorry, but you can't tell me that's an evil action, unless there were 10,001 people in the orphanage. Don't look at it as taking the lives of 100, look at it as saving the lives of 9,901.
Anyway you slice it. Doing evil for good is still doing evil. While the means is evil and the end is good. That does not make said action good. It might entirely turn out neutral but the point I’m making is that good is not entirely subjective. Good is about making those hard choices. About coming up with option C when A and B are bad, etc.
I'm not saying that they aren't hard choices to be made by good characters and that they shouldn't make those hard choices. I'm just saying that they are out there. And if Paladin Y were to kill a 1,000 orphans to save 10,000 others. Would he lose his paladinhood? Not sure what world you live in, but in mine he would. Although the entirety of his actions were neutral. He still had to perform an evil act. Thus requiring an atonement. I'm just saying that while the end sometimes justifies the means. Do not let your means become so evil that it overwhelms you.
A few questions:
How would you define Lawful and Chaotic actions?
Why not start, say NG characters off as +0 Law/Chaos, +10 Good?
Would you measure the intent or the effect?
What about, for example, the NG being struggling in a LE environment. Would they rack-up "chaos points" as they oppose Law, but for Good reasons?
(1) Grids
My system is not designed for a grid, it is designed to be a simple thing to write on the side of your character sheet.
Law/Chaos= X/X Pts.
Evil/Good = X/X Pts.
Sulaco's grid is also a great way to track your alignment. Wish I had thought of that. Works great. If you like grids, use this.
(2) To NeutralNeutral's questions.
How would you define Lawful and Chaotic actions?
These are by all means the trickiest ones to understand. A great question. In my opinion a lawful action would be something that a character does in which the law makes the PC make a choice. As DM it is up to you to present the situation of course. For example, after a long and arduous battle with the evil wizard he is brought back to town to atone for his crimes. There, do to lack of evidence he is found not guilty and released. But for you to obey that law and not cut him down. now that is a lawful, character changing act.
So disobeying the law in this manner and hunting him down would be chaotic because it goes against the order of the law. The neutral thing to do would be to watch him like a hawk and when he makes any show of his evil ways, Take him down justifiably and leave the courts out of it this time.
Why not start, say NG characters off as +0 Law/Chaos, +10 Good?
Because my system balances on a character having exactly 20 points. 10 divided up into Law/Chaos and 10 into Good/Evil. Balancing those alignments is the whole being of neutrality. A neutral person is not afraid to do an evil act. Nor are they afraid to do a good act. Neutral really is freedom as long as you don't tend towards one too often.
Would you measure the intent or the effect?
Usually these two come out the same, but say yahoo barbarian tries to slay the merchant for saying something about his mother and attempts to slay him on sight. Now that is chaotic to say the least. Not necessarily evil because the insult in the barbarian's culture is worth fighting over. Now if the group were to stop him before any trouble i would measure the intent. But if the effect was death for the merchant i would measure that. Note though, that if the effect happens i would weigh it heavier than intent.
What about, for example, the NG being struggling in a LE environment. Would they rack-up "chaos points" as they oppose Law, but for Good reasons?
Well, a situation like this really puts mister NG in a bind doesn't it? Technically yes, the NG player is going to rack up some major chaos points in this situation in the name of good, if he hails from this city and recognizes the law. He will quickly become a CG Rebel. however, if he was sent there to undermine the enemy law by another ruling nation he is in fact following the law of his homeland. This brings to mind a thousand contradictions between different regions and different laws, i know. This makes law and chaos very subjective. You have to use best judgment. Just beware the PC using "Personal Law" as an excuse. In my opinion, "Personal Law" is just a fancy word for Chaos because they do whatever they want.
But, at the same time this is chaotic, just as the example with the barbarian above is chaotic. It is chaotic because both of them KNOW they are in violation of the laws and it is a common civil courtesy to respect the culture of other lands. Now, in the case of the soldier following his lord's laws and violating another lands. that is a lawful and chaotic action and so, nothing would happen. But violating local custom and culture without a really good reason (In my opinion, insults don't count especially if you know you could cream them) that is chaotic.
(3) Subjectivity
No, this is not a perfect system.
Yes, there are exceptions to everything. I could come up with situations for hours where some of these guidelines would have trouble addressing.
Yes, it is up to you to adapt the system to your needs. I do not claim to be the final end-all, be-all of your alignment.
What I intend to do is help you roleplay better! With so many min-maxers out there and alignment begins to mean less and less to roleplaying and more and more to game mechanics. (I need a white robe of the arch magi, etc.) I wanted to bring people back to a system where they can diagnose and watch their actions so that they are aware of what they are doing to their character rather than how much cash they can acquire. That is the purpose of this system! Use it to such effect or don't. It is up to you. I just thought I'd share what has helped my players and me roleplay better.
Any action on its own is essentially morally neutral. It is only when we place that action in a given context that we can judge its morality.Let's see, just for the sake of reductio, what would happen if we were to apply the "killing is universally evil" maxim, shall we? First, let's posit that the Balor or whatever demonic being offering your PC this choice has some offspring. If your character actually managed to kill the demon, then you would have deprived young 'uns of their Daddy.
How about this one? If we're going to say that killing demons is ok, and that it's just killing other people that is wrong in all cases, then it is impossible to justify killing in self-defense or in the defense of others. For example, if killing humans were absolutely, universally, unequivocally evil, then shooting a guy dead who was slicing up your sister with a serrated bowie knife of doom would be an evil act. Huh?
Well, how about we make it more of a numbers game? Let's assume you are a planar traveler and you manage to show up in 1940 Germany, presented with the full knowledge of Hitler's plans and abilities as well as the opportunity to kill him. Would casting slay living on that bastard be a good thing or a bad thing? Hmm? By your rationale killing him would be bad, despite the fact that doing so would save MILLIONS of people.
Oh, I get it. It's ok to kill EVIL people. Huh? Ok, let's deal with this by analogy. In some moral codes, committing suicide is an evil act, just like homicide. If by taking my own life I could save the entire universe from annihilation, would it not be altruistic and GOOD of me to sacrifice myself for the entirety of the universe? Yes, and it would be selfish and EVIL of be to do otherwise.
How about a more common example? How about throwing oneself on a grenade to protect one's comrades? Surely that counts as suicide, yet surely that suicide was a good thing.
The idea that an action can be considered inherently good is a naive and simplistic paradigm. That's why we have moral conundrums in the first place, not because morality is cut and dry, null-sum game, but because it depends entirely upon the context in which one judges a given action or set of actions.
Context influences, nay, determines the morality of an action!
I have to respectfully disagree about your statement about "the greater good," above. It's certainly not as cut and dry as you make it seem. One could argue that refusing to burn down that orphanage and thus condemning 10,000 innocent people to die is also an evil act.
My interpretation of how I would handle the "kill 100 orphans to save 9100 people" scenario as 1-2 steps towards lawful (needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one) and 1-2 steps toward evil.
I have to respectfully disagree with your statement.
One could argue that, but only if they really didn't think about it first. There is no way murdering even one child could fall under the "good" umbrella. Likewise, killing even one innocent person (let alone 10,000) to save even one other person (even an orphan), can not ever be considered "good".
In the example given, the character has but one option that would be considered "good." Fight the pit fiend in defense of "your life and the lives of 10,000 others" and "that orphanage and everyone inside." Yes, you will undoubtedly perish--and probably the 10,000 others--and maybe all within the orphanage. But you will have done the only thing you could have that would have been "good".
To my mind, letting 10,000 people die in order that your conscience be clear is incredibly selfish. It's not really much use saying "well the DM shouldn't put you in that position" because this is not an in-game problem, but a hypothetical situation to test your view of good and evil; one that I find rather wanting, since it effectively places an abstract notion of good and evil and your [character's] own desire to conform to one over the lives of other people, through committing a "good" act thousands will die, but your conscience will be clean. If anything I'd prefer to place that in a position of law vs. chaos- a lawful good character would take the best overall position (kill the orphans) while a chaotic good character would do the best possible move in the situation- don't kill the children.
Also, The Po, I'm not quite sure I accept your view of Law/Chaos. Certainly law/anarchy is one facet, but its also a conflict between order and chaos. I guess it depends more on the tone of your campaign- if it's in FR, Greyhawk, etc a traditional medieval world and more social/political issues, then it's mostly about law versus anarchy. However if you're playing Planescape, or a more philosophical campaign, its more of a distinction between order (rational, logical thought, thinks of the universe as based on rules) and chaos (impulsive, thinks universe is random and likes it that way). While the latter is less common, it does occur (especially for lawful psions or monks, who probably care very little for human laws) and judging law/chaos solely on the laws of a society prevents those sort of characters unfairly- I can't see any way to have a chaotic character who obeys the law (except maybe if you consider the society of the slaadi) it's perfectly possible to create a lawful character who doesn't care one whit for law, if they have some relationship with the more primal forces of law e.g.: a scientist of some sort, in an oppressive religious-based society would still be lawful, even if his/her views and actions are illegal. There's also the problem of classifying a fascist/communist revolutionary...
The solution to the "burn down an orphanage vs. let 10,000 people die" problem is relatively simple. The pit fiend is evil; he's not to be trusted (don't let the "lawful" part of LE stop you from realizing that). His obvious intent, besides the death and carnage, is to force the character to fall; a formerly Good character, now Evil, can combat Good all the more effectively. Chances are that if you, as an adventurer, turned evil, you'd do much more damage than the pit fiend was threatening you with.
Once you realize that, you realize the only way to beat that situation is to find a way to stop said pit fiend, or else die trying. Have your spellcasters contact those 10,000 people, and have them get together some sort of defense--with that many, they have to know at least one person who can stop or slow down a pit fiend. Clerics and paladins can ask their churches/gods for help. Delay as long as possible; keep the pit fiend talking, if you can, while you have someone get the orphans out of the place and burn the building.
Once the pit fiend figures out that deception (which, chances are, will be very quickly), the deal is off and you're now in combat. Do what you can to stay alive--from diplomacy to headlong retreat--as long as you can, in order to keep its attention on you instead of the innocents. The longer the better, so that whoever's dealing with the orphans and the 10,000 people at risk can do their best to get them *out* of risk. Chances are, you'd survive a maximum of about ten rounds; but every second counts. Hopefully by then, some sort of divine power/powerful NPC will have been informed of the situation; and such people do not take a pit fiend's threat to kill ten thousand or more people lightly.
But back to the original post. Alignment charts? Good idea, but only if your group has regular problems determining where a character is, alignment-wise. Otherwise, more paper just confuses things.